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Friday, August 7, 2015

Colby Moore, a researcher from
cyber security firm Synack, has taught the attendees of Black Hat Conf.
something that can help an expert to own your cellphones, cars and factories.
Using cheap hardware, Moore demonstrated successful satellite hack by
intercepting and decoding the unencrypted signals.

We all know that GPS trackers
send signals to satellites and they send it back to base stations on Earth. The
Globalstar GPS satellite network, the company that calls itself the “world’s
most modern satellite network”, covers most of the Earth. And, you’ll be surprised
to know that it doesn’t guard its GPS satellites properly. There are no layers
of encryption and safety to confirm that the data is only shared between the
two desired ends.

Colby Moore, a researcher from
cyber security firm Synack said that each year at Black Hat, someone
demonstrates a satellite hack- but all of them are theoretical. So, he thought,
why not try something new. At this year’s Black Hat conf., without any
high-level theoretical presentation, he went on to demonstrate the satellite hack
step by step. Moore targeted Gobalstar as he already uses a
Globalstar SPOT for emergency signalling. Makes perfect sense, right?

To reverse-engineer the device,
he did some simple research. He found that device’s registration with the FCC
has lots of useful data for this GPS satellite hack. After detailing the
protocol, Moore made a simple device that costs less than $1,000 to
capture and decode the signals from Globalstar GPS trackers.

Moore’s Box has the ability to
catch the satellite’s traffic and decode it. But, to the satellite hack of GPS
tracker in real time, it will need more computing power. Talking about the idea
of injecting a packet, he called it illegal as it could interfere with the
critical functions and communications. He said that the actual control of
satellite doesn’t use this protocol, hence people should stop worrying about
moving the satellite back and forth.

You can see picture of Moore with
his satellite hack box below:

Moore with his satellite hack box

PCMag writes that looking at the device’s firmware,
Moore spotted a debugging console that had the ability to change device’s
unique ID to that of another device. So, you can steal a car, copy and disable
its tracker and make it look like as if that car is still travelling. It could
also be used to spoof emergency alerts, know where someone’s hiding, or take
competitive advantage by tracking your business rival’s activities.

Moore reported the problem to
Globalstar about 180 days ago, but he didn’t get a proper response. They later
issued a statement repeating that they “take privacy seriously.” However,
Globalstar can’t really do anything as it’s nearly impossible to upgrade about
649,000 Globalstar devices around the globe.

What’s your take on this new
satellite hack? Tell us in comments below.

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